Arkady Fiedler & Fiat 126p in Africa

On 1 September 2014, Arkady Paweł Fiedler embarked on a journey through Africa driving The Tiny (just google the car, you’ll get it) – from Damietta in Egypt, to Cape Town, South Africa. Yes, this technological miracle, Fiat 126p, proved to be up to the task!

The Tiny was on the road for 3.5 months, covered 10,063 ml, visited 11 countries, and burnt 209 gal of gas.

In February 2015, the green Cougher (if you ever heard it get started, you’d know) returned safely to Poland, to the Museum of Arkady Fiedler. It didn’t fall apart somewhere in the middle of the desert, or jungle, and it’s a ‘living’ proof that even such a small vehicle can be your mode of transportation during the journey of a lifetime.

Arkady P. Fiedler is a born traveller. He is the grandson of one of the most famous Polish travellers – Arkady Fiedler, who during his lengthy life made 30 big expeditions and wrote plenty of books. He embarked on his last journey at the tender age of 87, destination: Africa.

It’s worth stressing that Arkady the grandfather was travelling during the times when people didn’t fly planes – he reached Brazil on a ship, and ventured deeper into the continent using a steam engine. You had to have a lot of determination to be able to travel. Oldschool globetrotters were the true pioneers, hotheads and adventure-seekers. Today, in Puszczykowo near Poznań, where he lived, there’s a museum with numerous exhibits, including the Columbus Santa Maria ship replica. You can read an interesting article on Arkady Fiedler’s life at Onet (in Polish).

The grandson of the legendary Arkady has decided to go the hard way and travel through Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa driving Fiat 126p – The Polish Tiny – at the end of the day, his last name had him set up for this.

We appreciate the fact that our English-speaking readers may not be familiar with The Tiny. Fiat 126p is a passenger car that was manufactured in Poland in the years 1973-2000. For many years, The Bumblebee, as it was called, was the most popular car in the country. To this day, there are Cougher fanclubs, and its sighting on the road brings a smile to people’s faces.

But what do we have to do with all this? KamKam Visuals has just started to work on postproduction of a TV series and a documentary depicting the brave Cougher’s expedition. Currently, we’re going through a ton of material with Arkady, that he recorder during the trip – the Sudan episode is starting to take shape. The next couple of months will be spent on editing, color grading and animations. The premiere is scheduled around December – we can’t wait!

PS. Arkady’s journey took the second place in the 9th edition of the Traveller in the National Geographic’s Trip of the Year category.